Near Miss of the Day 207: Cyclists swerve in slipstream as lorry load of timber passes

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

That's a lot of Ifs, Captain Hindsight. 

davel wrote:

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

That's a lot of Ifs, Captain Hindsight. 

Most of the vehicles passing showed little regard to the cyclists, by carrying far too much speed.  Its still not good when a vehicle come passed at 60mph

Slow down, just like you'd when passing horse and rider.

CXR94Di2 wrote:

davel wrote:

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

That's a lot of Ifs, Captain Hindsight. 

 

Most of the vehicles passing showed little regard to the cyclists, by carrying far too much speed.  Its still not good when a vehicle come passed at 60mph

Slow down, just like you'd when passing horse and rider.

The driver should slow down, yes. 

The point I was trying to succinctly address (to Judge Dreadful, not you) is a fairly common one on these threads, along the lines of:

'from my perspective, having seen the video, if I was dropped into that situation, right now, I'd do something different'...

Well, yeah. So would the rider in the video. The thing is, that pass was really fucking quick - too quick to do anything about. Most of these are, despite the Billy Bigbollocks comments about how omniscient posters would do something different. 

This isn't just aimed at Judge Dreadful because plenty of posters are full of it in these comments, but this example is particularly silly. If you'd anticipated what was about to happen, and how long the vehicle was, and how fast it was going and how tightly it was going to cut in, you'd have pulled alongside the other rider. WTF?

If you're in possession of the facts before something's happened, put road.cc down and go and save orphans or play the lottery.

If you think you could have pulled alongside as the facts were dawning, very quickly, on you because the lorry was mid-overtake, have a word with yourself, because if you'd tried that you'd've got yourself squashed.

davel wrote:

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

That's a lot of Ifs, Captain Hindsight. 

And a big truck travelling quite fast, even with hindsight I'd not be trying to put myself any nearer the damn thing, thats one of those they are coming through hell or high water overtakes

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

Sounds good in theory, but doesn’t always work. I had a similar (but not quite as bad) pass from a tractor with a massive trailer. I'd clocked it approaching and moved to primary as there was oncoming traffic, then when clear moved over to secondary. The tractor passed and initially gave me room but then blasted its horn before pulling sharply in nearly catching me with the trailer, despite no oncoming traffic.

Mind you, I tucked in behind it and drafted it for a mile bagging a strava PR, so not all bad!

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

If you think that is the solution, then you did not understand the problem.

Judge dreadful wrote:

 From a personal perspective, If I was the camera bike rider, and I’d clocked the truck approaching from behind, I’d have pulled up to riding abreast with the rider in front, the truck driver never should have made that pass, so I would have been inclined to have made it impossible. The driver was 100 percent at fault here, but that counts for little if you get clipped.

Not sure if serious.

Pulling into the path of a truck with a closing speed of 40mph would be suicidal. 100kg of flesh and bike would have done nothing to make the pass "impossible" but would have made it lethal.

ktache wrote:

And that's a highly trained professional.

From watching the video, I would say that your statement above should really be a question.

And that's a highly trained professional? There, FTFY

hirsute wrote:

I thought the worst bit was at the end, when the cyclist in the distance seemed to get the same treatment.

Lorrycock clearly has no idea how long his vehicle is. It started off 'ok' but tapered down to very close one.